Poets: Kathleen Rooney (Chicago) and Elisa Gabbert (Boston)
Smalldoggies Poetry Feature #3: Kathleen Rooney (Chicago) and Elisa Gabbert (Boston)... in Collaboration
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Stage Combat
What do you think about when you’re forgetting a line?
I don't think about the line, exactly, at least not as comprised of letters & words.
What about when you're blowing a scene?
I clear my mind of theatrical things & imagine a loon in my throat.
Soon you'll be going on autopilot w/ the wooden leading man.
Yes—a dream since I was a small girl in toe shoes.
They say madness is part sadness, but do you ever cry real tears?
Psychosexy is my stage persona; I swear, I am not a lunatic.
Would you eat a wasp if a role required it?
I would fuck a wasp if a role required it.
Can self-actualized self-loathing ever be first-rate theater?
The experts say you have to love yourself first, but I call a hotline for that.
I'm not a fan, but I think I detected a come-on in your last Broadway appearance.
Bullshit you're not a fan; that was my fan-test & you just got an A-plus.
Don't you realize this all might be a fantastic dream, or do you ever realize anything?
A woman in my day and age can't be expected to sit around all day thinking.
If you could sing one last show-stopper, what would spoil it?
A puerile accompanist might spoil—but definitely not stop—my final show.
Any glimmer of hope for the stage door Johnnies to escort you home?
I miss the logic you are giving up on trying to impose.
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The Object Stares Back
They say that beauty is ineffable, but is pain also ______?
Failure to explain is an occupational hazard a critic must try to watch out for.
I heard you've referred to Picasso's work as a pack of nude photos. Is it really true?
How one can ever quote genius to such a one as you—a waste of the air.
I have the utmost admiration for your accent, but do you even notice it?
I notice it a great deal; in fact I am always exaggerating it.
Surely you concede, there must be more than three types of art.
I refuse to discuss art when there is all this world in the world.
Excuse me, but this stage of life is all about becoming.
No, becoming is unconscious; the very young know this.
How can you say peace is the enemy of art?
The question is what is the natural enemy of art.
Are you suggesting we mean what we say publicly, but regret it privately?
Your insinuations are complex, but are no match for the French.
What is the obsession with the meaning of sex in France about anyway?
Ah ha, you have stumbled into the very trap.
You claim you're an extrovert, but that's de rigueur, that or a recluse.
No money in this business for an introvert, but personality is all perversion.
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The Mirror Does Not Fog
Does anything scare you now that you're a ghost?
The only fears I can feel are those of other people.
Is every fiber of a wheat field now scattered to the wind o'er some higher-order field?
No cell in my body remains; no one knows who the dead are or from what they're made.
Did your memories from before you were born carry over and deepen?
If I have any regrets they have turned brittle, sugary.
Have you finally found the source of that vague mewling and rasping you always perceived?
You should be aware that I'm having to translate forward from an older dialect.
Do you look back on this world in color or black and white?
It isn’t like any scary movie you’ve seen; I don’t see, I am not seen.
Can you tell me a secret? Is there any such thing as evil angels?
The sky rains all around me like liquid snow, but paler. More chalky.
Are you amused by us children on earth, avoiding the inevitable always?
From birth to unbirth, life consists of refusal.
Is it depressing when you consider eternity, how you'll never get out of it?
It's a little frustrating, a little refreshing, and a lot like dreaming.
What happens when you float into someone’s room in a cloud of invisibility?
There's a sense, for that person, of drawing a blank.
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Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press and the author, most recently, of the memoir Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object (Arkansas, 2009) and the essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs (Counterpoint, 2010). With Elisa Gabbert, she is the co-author of the poetry collection That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (Otoliths, 2008) and the chapbooks Don't ever stay the same; keep changing (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2009) and Something Really Wonderful (dancing girl press, 2007).
She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Find out more about Kathleen Rooney at her website.
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Elisa Gabbert's collaborations with Kathleen Rooney can be found in 21 Stars Review, Admit Two, Caketrain, The Concher, Dusie, Elimae, Foursquare, MiPOesias, Past Simple, Sawbuck and other journals, and That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness , a full-length collection of collaborative poetry, is forthcoming from Otoliths Books.
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Elisa Gabbert is the poetry editor of Absent and the author of The French Exit (Birds, LLC) and Thanks for Sending the Engine (Kitchen Press). Recent poems can be found in Denver Quarterly, The Laurel Review, Puerto del Sol, The Rumpus, and Salt Hill. She currently lives in Boston, works at a software startup, and blogs at the below address.
She currently lives in Boston, MA.
Find out more about Elisa Gabbert at her blog, The French Exit.